Just for pure airplane history nut's sake, that's a B-17G. You can tell because it has the remote-controlled, motorized dual-.50-cal machine gun turret in the nose. The B-17F, which was the predecessor, instead had two single .50-cal machine guns that were manually operated, one by the bombardier and the other by the navigator.

Good call sir. That chin turret is always a giveaway. The EAA flies one around the country to give tours and flights. It never saw combat action but it's still pretty awesome. Tour is cheap, flight is expensive. They also have a Ford Tri-Motor which I've been on. EAA B-17

Yep. This would totally be my Grandpa too if it was a B-24D and he was still alive. Talk about some scary missions...he flew in the first (low level) Ploesti raid. Imagine being told that only half of the planes were expected to come home. Not encouraging.

Sometimes I'm not sure if I would've been more scared of the flak or the enemy fighters. Either way, it wasn't pleasant. My grandpa didn't talk about the war much...hardly at all. But Ploesti was hard on him. They were low enough to shoot at people on the ground. That made things different. It was easier shooting at planes...not as haunting.

Same here my Granddad never talked about it I only found out about this through the records he stored away and I only found out about my uncle's Navy service in Vietnam aboard a PBR after he died and my cousin(a navy corpsman, Afghan vet) went through his old gear and papers.

Yeah. I was lucky enough to get some information from grandpa. I did a report on his bomber group when I was a kid. He sent me a bunch of paper work and I asked a few questions which he answered but it never got very in depth. I think he really liked that someone asked, but I always wished I would have talked with in person about it. It just seems like something that was meant to be brought up though. I dunno.

People don't realize just how badass the bomber pilots were back in the day. They had massive formations, meaning even under fire all they could do was fly straight until they either got shot down or made it to the target.

There isn't a pilot on earth these days that would see anti-aircraft fire and just keep on the same course and speed right at it. They must have had balls of steel.

Yeah. Heading straight into the flak on a bomb run had to be scary as all shit, but don't forget how terrifying the next part was as well. Flying a possibly battered plane while enemy fighters start pouring lead into you...just damn. Falling out of formation in a plane limping along was nearly a death sentence.

Yea, they kinda do. That's what the whole master race thing was about (NAZI Germany). That's what spreading communism was all about(Russia). That's what creating a great Roman Empire was about (Italy). That's what protecting the Empire was about (UK). That's what Kokutai was about (Japan). That's what defending the free world was about (the US). Every side thought it was the good side. Every side thought it had God on it's side, but the fact is that the Allies won and the Axis lost. The fact is that this man is one of the soldiers who fought for the winning side. Even more so, he wasn't some celebrated hero, he was just a man who did his duty and fought for a cause that he believed in. He probably doesn't even expect to be celebrated, only that he did the dirty work in a war that shapes our current world. That doesn't make him a terrorist, that makes him a man doing his duty. He's considered a hero by his country, his ancestors, and those who share his ideology.

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